


pressure points

by vomara



Category: Breaking Bad
Genre: El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie, Gen, Implied/Referenced Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:47:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22224352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vomara/pseuds/vomara
Summary: When there's pressure on her, Lydia has no choice but to intervene.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 28
Collections: Blue Christmeth 2019





	pressure points

**Author's Note:**

  * For [antipattern](https://archiveofourown.org/users/antipattern/gifts).



> here it is. had fun with this one, but god, was it hard.

They’ve been calling her again. Long silence on the phone, a beep as the call cuts. It’s leaving her more tense than usual, if that’s even possible. God, she should’ve never agreed to work with Todd. That last shipment had been notably impure, and far too little for all the risk she takes in this venture. This isn’t some local gang she distributes to, this is an international drug cartel, and every day she puts herself and Kiira on the line.

As she checks her bag, she takes a discreet glance behind her -- nothing. Not a single man out of place, no unusual cars in the parking lot. A regular day at the cafe, a regular Tuesday morning of average busybodies doing average activities. They read their newspapers, check their phones and imbibe their drinks. A tired customer bites into his panini, a waitress bumbles from table to table. Lydia orders her regular tea and waits for it to arrive. Then: one packet of stevia, just how she likes it.

Her nerves slowly start to untangle, the earlier anxiety of the phone call abating momentarily. The scent of chamomile wafts in the air. Routine, how comforting.

The front door rings as a man enters, and the comfort shatters. Lydia bites her lip, and sips from her cup to calm herself down. He’s late, not abiding by routine. _Not acceptable_ , but she’s got to bury her reservations and do her job. Still, it irks her.

It’s just one more reason not to work with him, but she has to try one more time. If he’s got a full shipment today, fantastic. If not… there’ll be some personal involvement, no other option here. So far she’s been working on a _don’t ask, don’t tell_ basis, but every phone call nudges her closer to this. She’ll have to inquire into Todd’s chemist, into his process, and his… other methods, she supposes.

 _Brutes_ , a vague voice at the back of her mind whispers.

She misses Gus.

Todd smiles in that eerie cold way of his, his eyes wandering to her bare neck, devouring the view. He’s wearing a faded crimson shirt today, a certain satisfied gleam to his eyes. He takes a seat in front of her, no longer concerned about anonymity, leans forward and clasps his hands together.

The bag lies on the floor between them, and she pokes it softly with her shoe. The firmness tells her nothing. Of course it wouldn’t, Todd wouldn’t dare bring fifty pounds of meth casually into an eating establishment. Sure, she works out in her private gym, but she’s nowhere near strong enough to carry that much out of here without it looking suspicious. Besides, she leaves that task to her men. It would be unbefitting of her to handle this aspect of business.

“Hi, Lydia,” he says. “How are you?”

Her fingers twitch, and she tightens her grip on her teacup. “I’m good. Have you got the product? The right amount this time?”

Todd’s smile falls a little. “We’re still a bit short this time. Things happened, we fell behind.”

Lydia sighs, taking off her sunglasses. “That’s not a good enough explanation, Todd. This isn’t just about you. I have people depending on me, depending on you and your product. There are consequences if your product isn’t up to speed. They were fine before the purity increased, but now that we’re back on track, my customer has certain demands that need to be met.”

“I know, but you gotta trust me on this. Jesse’s has been kinda under the weather lately, you know. I’m thinking I’ll maybe take him out again this weekend, try to make him feel better.”

The discomfort roils in Lydia’s stomach and she brings her cup up to her lips. Todd talks about Jesse Pinkman like he’s an unsatisfied girlfriend, someone he can take to dinner and romance and then everything will be alright, everything will be a-okay and their relationship will be nice and neat once again. But she _knows_ , knows there’s something more to this, even if she doesn’t know exactly what.

“I’ve still got forty pounds packed and ready to go if you want it,” Todd continues. “Eighty-four percent, and it’s not at the ninety threshold, but it’s close, and it’s blue. Like, pastel kinda blue.”

The Czech are like parents with high expectations. The second she gave them good meth, they wanted nothing less. Eighty-four isn’t close enough. Not by a longshot, not with her contact breathing down her neck as they speak. Lydia closes her eyes for a moment, clenches them shut.

"Todd," she finally says. "I know I said before that I didn't want to see how you handle business. But I need assurance that this… problem of yours will be rectified soon. We'll need extra shipments next week to even _begin_ to solve this."

Todd's eyes shift, a grimace forming on his face. "I'm sorry, but Jesse's been having a real tough time and I don't know how to fix it. He's just lackluster, you know. The focus isn't coming back and I don't think he's sleeping. I think I can get fifty for next week but I don't know about more."

There's a disgusting taste slipping down Lydia's throat. Something dirty. "Then take me to him, let me see the set up. I need this problem solved as soon as possible."

Todd cocks his head to the side, as if considering her offer. He's staring earnestly at her from across the table, hands on the table like he's got nothing to hide. Like he doesn't have blood on them, like he's nothing more than an ordinary man with an ordinary job. But the coldness in his eyes is telling. There's a lack of something there, and he blinks slowly, the way an animal would had you caught its attention. His gaze slides downwards for a second, catching on the cut of her top.

Lydia represses the urge to shiver. She deliberates for another moment, before making up her mind. It’s too easy, almost, sliding her hand over his. Grasping a predator shouldn’t be so simple, but it is. "Todd," she says, meeting his eyes. "Let me help you."

\---

About three years ago, Lydia had started therapy. She’d begun to consider it after her secretary had noted how tense she was in her day-to-day activities. Shortly thereafter, Delores had told her that therapy had worked wonders for her youngest son. With that, Lydia had scheduled her first appointment with an esteemed therapist in the area, a genteel older woman with years of experience working with businesspeople and the ilk.

At first, it had been a good experience. She received an anxiety diagnosis almost from the get-go, a prescription just in case. The therapist listened to her troubles and concerns and for a little while, her constant apprehension faded. But as Lydia continued to see her, another form of apprehension grew. It was a different kind of anxiety, insidious, a boa constrictor curled around her neck. The elephant in the room, the unspoken second life that made up most of Lydia’s fears -- it remained unsaid, but soon, every word out of her mouth was a lie, confidentiality be damned. Exposing the truth made her anxious, telling a lie made her anxious, the _business_ made her anxious -- 

Soon after, she quit therapy.

The gates to the compound loom darkly ahead of her, and the boa constrictor tightens its hold around her once again.

“You don’t gotta see this, Miss,” Todd says, seated beside her in the driver’s seat. He depresses the brake pedal, bringing the car to a halt in front of the gates. “I know you don’t quite like these kinds of sights.”

Lydia looks away as Todd climbs out of the car. “I don’t but it’s not like I have much of a choice here.” And it’s not like she hasn’t been here before either, but Todd’s reluctance to let her in is telling.

Todd hums in response, shutting the door behind him. Lydia watches him as he jams the key into the lock and pushes the gates wide open for them to go through. He’s still humming when he gets back behind the wheel, some older tune that she barely recognizes.

As she gets out of the car, Lydia takes a quick glance around the compound. It’s the same as she remembers, in many senses. The same dusty warehouse look, dilapidated buildings hiding all sorts of dirty business. Visibly speaking, there’s not much for her to see here. Pinkman’s probably hanging out in the clubhouse right now, waiting for them.

Todd veers them towards a covered grating instead, and she stumbles making the turn.

“Are you alright?” He asks, holding out a hand to her.

Lydia keeps a scowl off her face. “I’m fine.”

“Well, alright then,” Todd says. “But I gotta ask. You sure you wanna talk to him?”

The scowl forms anyway, but Lydia eyes the tarp on the ground nervously. Todd hadn’t told her the terms of Jesse’s contract, but the dark feeling she had earlier is coming into clarity. “Yes, Todd. I already told you that.”

Todd nods, leaning down to untie the end of the tarp. “Okay, Lydia. But I’m telling you it might not be your thing.” He pulls the tarp off the ground and beckons her forward.

Her eyes go first to the bucket of excrement on the floor, then to the sleeping roll, then to the man curled up near the corner of the pit, head hung low, a mop of dingy brown hair. The man -- Pinkman -- raises his head, squinting into the light. “Todd?” His voice cracks dryly.

Lydia blinks. Then again, and again. The nausea rises up in her and she latches on to the nearest steady object -- Todd’s arm, right beside her, as if he were waiting for her to grab it.

“I told you that you might not want to see,” he says.

\---

_Brutes._

The thought returns to her as she holds a mug of green tea between her hands. The scent wafts unpleasantly in the air, but the warmth of the mug keeps her grounded. _It’s all we have,_ Todd had said as he handed it to her. It’ll make do for now, she supposes. At least it’s washed down the bile in her mouth. She’d nearly vomited out there.

She should’ve never agreed to work with these men. Gus wouldn’t have done this. Or if he did, she wouldn’t have known about it, because every shipment would’ve been made right and on time. Ignorance is a bliss that she must sometimes enjoy in this business, but here she is, in the midst of it all, due to Todd’s incompetence.

She takes another sip from her cup of tea, and scrunches her nose -- it only now really strikes her that it tastes acrid, oversteeped. Maybe it’s enough just to hold the mug and wait for Todd to come back. She leans back on the dingy, overstuffed recliner, staring at the worn clock on the wall. For all the Nazis use this compound, they don’t bother to take care of it. They’re rich, for goodness sakes’, and yet they just sit on their money. Lydia sure as hell isn’t going to help them launder it, but would it really catch the IRS’s eye if they’d just upgraded their facility a little?

“Hey, I finished the set up,” Todd says, opening the clubhouse door. “I told him that you wanted to run through the process with him.”

“I wanted to talk to him, yes.” Lydia gets up, brushing the dust off her skirt. “He’s out of that cage, right?”

“Yeah, of course. Figured you’d want to see him in the lab.”

Lydia purses her lips. “I can handle that. Lead the way, Todd.”

The dust continues to cling to Lydia as she steps out into the sun with Todd. The warehouse housing the lab is open, and they duck into the shade together.

It takes a moment for her eyes to adjust, but then she spots him, nearly hidden by a large machine. He’s turned away from them, sifting through materials.

“Hey, Jesse,” Todd calls from beside her. “Come here.”

She catches Jesse’s eyes for the briefest moment as he turns to meet them, a chill running up her spine. The moment disappears as quickly as it came as he breaks the connection, turning his gaze downwards. Lydia’s eyes follow, taking him in -- hunched shoulders, clenched hands, a chain tied around his waist, leading up to a runner fixed from the ceiling. His eyes are glazed, a thousand-yard stare that had come to permeate his entire existence. Like a beaten dog awaiting punishment, leashed and trained to be obedient. He’s a far cry from the awkward young man she’d met all those months previous.

“Jesse, this is Lydia, the lady I told you about,” Todd says, placing an arm across Jesse’s shoulders. His hand moves lazily up and down, rubbing Jesse’s arm.

Jesse’s eyes flicker over to Todd apprehensively. “We’ve met.”

Lydia glances away from his face, her eyes trailing Todd’s moving hand. “Sorry to see you again under these circumstances.”

It’s so quick that Lydia almost missed it; there’s something hard in Jesse’s despondent stare. His eyebrows come together, his lips curl just a bit before his face unravels back into forced docility. Her mind reels over the micro expression. For a second there, she’d seen him the way he was the first time they’d met. Todd blinks inattentively beside Jesse, dense about the particulars of normal human interaction. But Lydia’s a businesswoman, so she caught the message just fine. _You’re not sorry at all,_ Jesse’s telling her, but he can’t say the words out loud.

She’s plenty sorry. Lydia knows this, it’s a fact. There’s a kind of guilt that’s been growing in her ever since Todd said the Pinkman was cooking for them, a guilt then formless that had come into shape the moment Todd had lifted that tarp. But being sorry won’t make her act. And certainly, it won’t do anything for Jesse Pinkman.

“Todd,” she hears herself saying. “Do you mind leaving us alone for a bit?”

“Sure, I can do that. I’ll be in the clubhouse if you need me.” Todd pauses. “Oh, and Jesse, I gotta talk to you about that thing afterwards. That okay?”

Jesse gives a small nod. Lydia mentally files the comment away for later.

“Alright then.” With that, Todd takes his leave.

She waits for his footsteps to fade before speaking. “The purity dropped, Jesse. How do you explain that?”

The light she saw earlier leaps back into Jesse’s eyes, and his mouth curls into a snarl, muted but surprisingly acerbic. “So that’s how you wanna start?”

“That’s all I’m here for,” Lydia replies, keeping her voice even. “I get that answer, we fix the problem, and then we’re done here.”

The irritated look stays on Jesse’s face. It’s like a switch flipped in him the moment Todd disappeared. His expression remains subdued compared to the first time she saw him, but vitality returns to it, if only temporarily. “Um, how about we start with the fact that you vomited when you first saw me? Ain’t gonna ask about the chain?”

“I didn’t vomit,” Lydia bites back. _Just bile, that’s all._

“Sure sounded like you did.”

Lydia takes a brief glance at his feet shackles. Breathes in. Breathes out. “Look, Jesse. You may not believe me, but I _deeply_ regret the fact that this happened to you. But this is about more than you, and I need to know why the purity’s declined in the past few weeks. It’s important to me.”

Jesse moves away from the center of the walkway, leaning on a worktable. He tugs on his chain to readjust it, idly rolling it between his fingers. His eyes shift anxiously across her face. “It’s... important to you?”

“Very much so,” Lydia affirms.

“Why?”

Lydia looks him in the eye. “For the safety of my daughter.”

The irritation in his expression ebbs, and he chews his lip, mulling. After a moment, he speaks up. “I don’t know. Why the purity’s dropped, I mean.”

She takes in the appearance of the lab -- it’s surprisingly neat, pedantically so. It’s the compulsive organization style of someone who had too much time on his hands. The larger vats and machinery are squeaky clean, polished to a shine. She can even make out her own reflection on the nearest vessel.

“The lab is pristine,” Lydia says. “This has to do with you or Todd, then. Does Todd still cook with you or does he leave you alone?”

Jesse tilts his head. “He doesn’t leave me alone, but he hasn’t bothered to help with the cook for a while now.”

“So it’s just you, then.”

“Yeah. Just me.”

Lydia steps closer to him. “So what is the problem? Todd told me earlier that you were unfocused.”

Jesse’s eyes flick to her quickly, an angry glint in them once more. “Take a look at me. What do you think’s the problem?”

“You’ve been cooking like this just fine for months, haven’t you? There’s something else.”

“I don’t know. Todd maybe. Or the other Nazi fucks on the compound.” Jesse’s face twists in distress. “They don’t leave me alone when I’m here, y’know?”

“Have they been bothering you more lately?”

He looks away. “I… no, not really.”

Lydia watches him, impatience building. “Jesse, if you don’t tell me what it is that has you worked up, I cannot help you.”

A scowl forms on his face, and his voice turns sardonic. “Is this what that is? Helping?”

Lydia lifts her chin, straightening her back. “I’ll do what I have to do to see the purity increase.”

“Anything short of setting me free, though, right?”

“Anything but that.”

Jesse’s arm raises, and he scratches the back of his head, looking down -- almost as if in defeat. “So, you want me to tell you what’s up, huh?”

“Yes,” Lydia replies curtly.

His voice is tentative when he speaks, hoarse and soft. “Todd, uh. Todd, the weekend before last, we were alone here, all the other guys had gone shooting, or something, I don’t remember. And Todd said, you know, because we’re alone, that he wanted to take me on a field trip.” He shifts, and a nervous energy comes over him; Lydia can see it in the way he holds himself, the physical tics making its way across his body. He covers his mouth, his other arm curled into his chest. “He, uh, he took me to his house.”

She blinks, and it takes everything she has to keep her face straight, to keep from reacting to that first immediate thought that springs to her head.

Jesse doesn’t seem to notice anything, just continues, a growing edge to his voice as he becomes engrossed in his own tale. “He had me in the passenger seat of his car, down in, like, the foot area to hide me, and then he drove all the way to his apartment in the city. And it was like I was just waiting, sitting there and _waiting_ for something to happen the whole time, but then we got there and he made me put, like, a cover on his car, and then he took me to his place.

“I was scared as _shit,_ and I don’t really know what I was expecting. But then he made me go into the kitchen and there she was. His cleaning lady, she was just laying there on his tiles, dead. He’d strangled her to death. He’d brought me along because he wanted me to help him dispose of her.” He looks up, his brow creased in distress. “And you know what he killed her for? _Nothing._ No point at all, she’d just inconvenienced him, and he’d strangled her with his belt.” His stance shifts again, his shoulders rolling back in discomfort. “So we rolled her up in a rug, and we put her in the back of the car. I was in the back with her the whole time as we, uh, we drove out to the desert to bury her.”

He pauses for a moment, and Lydia watches him -- the tense muscles of his neck waver as he swallows thickly, sinew along his wrist twitching as he tightens his grip on the edge of the table. In her mind’s eye, Lydia can almost see him lying against that corpse, his muscles just as rigid as they are now.

“Is that it?” She asks cautiously. “The cleaning lady?”

Jesse’s silent for a long moment. “No. Out in, like, the middle of nowhere, we buried her,” he continues. “And I had the chance to kill him. I could’ve shot him out there, nobody would’ve ever known. I could’ve escaped, but,” his voice falters, his head falling. “He talked me down, told me to give him the gun, and then… and then I just handed the gun back to him. I couldn’t help myself.”

Silence ensues as Lydia grapples for something to say, but reason falters. There’s something gross about the way Jesse puts it, like he’d subconsciously given in the second Todd had asked for the gun. “And this… surrender. Is that what’s got you down?”

The mild irritation is back on his face, dry as a summer heat. “Yeah, I guess that’s it.”

“Well,” Lydia says. “That’s nothing I can fix. You have to get over that yourself and get back on track.”

Jesse glances at her out of the side of his eye. “Yeah, well, I can’t. He’s taking me out again this weekend and I don’t know what he’ll want to do. That murder, or whatever, that was unplanned, he didn’t plan to kill her, you know? So… I don’t know what’s next. I can’t predict anything with him. He shot a kid _on impulse._ Maybe it’s nothing, maybe he’s looping me in for some business, _I don’t know._ ”

Lydia presses her lips together. “I doubt he’ll do anything like that again.”

“But you don’t know that.” Jesse pauses, watching Lydia’s reactions, before casting his gaze aside, his voice growing quiet. “He thinks I’m his, like, friend or something. His pet, maybe.”

Todd’s cold, empty eyes come to mind as Lydia recalls the way he’d spoken to her, watching her like a prize to be won. She saw the man once a week for a meeting. The thought of being with him day in and day out -- Lydia nearly shudders. No wonder Jesse Pinkman is shaky, destabilized by Todd’s behavior. Yet Lydia remembers how fondly Todd had praised Jesse to her before, remembers the unfamiliar warmth in his voice when talking to Jesse. She doesn’t know what to think.

Lydia looks away, breaking out of her ruminations. “I can’t do anything about that, Jesse.”

“Is there anything you _can_ do?”

“Not much,” Lydia says, her voice becoming stern. “I don’t have full authority here. Some things are out of my domain.”

Jesse stares at her, before his eyes wander over to the photograph clipped to a post. “They’re… they’re threatening to kill my girlfriend’s kid. His name is Brock, he’s only eight and --” He pauses, at a loss for words. Finally, he stops, taking a deep breath. “Lydia,” he starts again. “You mentioned you had a daughter, that you were doing this for her. This kid, he’s… I don’t know, he’s like a son to me. And they’re threatening to kill him. They already killed his mom. If you can do anything, then get him somewhere safe. _Please._ ”

The photograph is grainy, shot from a distance, but Lydia can see the boy’s dark eyes through it. “If I help the kid,” she says blankly. “They hold nothing over you anymore, do they?”

Jesse swallows. “You don’t gotta worry about that, Lydia. I’ll keep working, I’ll get the purity up. I promise.”

Emotion swells in her but Lydia halts it, stops it in its tracks. She observes the shape of Jesse’s face, the creases and crevices distorted in desperation. It’s just a shape, she tells herself. Just a shape. Slowly, the tide recedes.

Kiira’s face is rounder, younger, sweeter. Staring at the boy’s photo, Lydia gathers the courage to reply. “I’m sorry. I can’t do it.”

\---

She sees him there, in his shackles, and the pity surges in her one last time. He’s watching her, his mouth nothing more than a slanted line from this distance, his eyes shadowed heavily, skin sallow and scars prominent.

Necessary costs. That’s what she always finds in her job. Scanning ledgers, procuring paperwork, inspecting factories. Between the lines, there’s always a cost. Madrigal’s latest industrial equipment was sent to a plant in Thailand. She’d initially turned a blind eye to the company ordering it, but curiosity struck her one slow afternoon. A quick Google search had told her all she needed to know. Seven people dead in a factory accident. Less than optimal working conditions. Men and women forced into the employ of corporate executives who considered them as disposable as sheets of scrap paper. Regardless of what she found, she managed to go on with her day, closed the tab and move on with her life. It’s simply the necessary cost of doing business. One must accept that to get anywhere in life.

So what made Pinkman’s suffering any different than those men? Nothing comes to mind. She’ll have to accept that his imprisonment is just another aspect of the business, a necessary cost. There’s no place for guilt here, nor pity. His face disappears from view as she climbs into the passenger seat of Todd’s El Camino. From the side of her eye, she glimpses Todd’s blond hair as he helps Jesse climb into his cage. There’s an almost-tenderness to Todd when he speaks to Jesse. A man and his dog.

Well. She can think of one thing that makes Pinkman’s suffering different. Because unlike all those men who work the bottom line, Jesse Pinkman is invaluable. To every meth head in the USA. To the Czech cartels. To her and Kiira, safe at home.

“I’ll be back soon, Jesse, okay?” She hears Todd say from afar. There’s no audible reply.

And of course, how could she forget. He’s invaluable to Todd Alquist, too.


End file.
